…
Turk didn’t remember how many beers he’d had. Ten? Twenty? A hundred? No, if he’d had a hundred he’d be really drunk. As it was he just felt kinda smashed. Not shitfaced, not three-sheets-to-the-wind, but definitely polluted. He strolled along the beach, chasing the little crabs back into the surf in a kind of stumbly-stagger, occasionally roaring and belching at the scurrying crustaceans, like a drunken tiger with a tranquilizer dart in his ass.
Turk had left Marybeth and Clive at the seaside buffet, Clive working his way through a third bottle of white wine and desperately trying to get Marybeth to go to bed with him. To her credit, she’d shown no interest. Yet Clive was undeterred, letting the Chardonnay wage a war of attrition on her morals and aesthetics until, he hoped, she’d be ready to hump a giant sea cucumber.
Turk laughed out loud. Poor Clive, working his ass off for a piece of tail. That was the best part about being a rock star. You never had to work too hard to get laid.
Turk reached his beachside cabana and stood on the porch looking at the water. He gripped the railing for balance as he swayed in the soft breeze coming off the bay. The cabana was new, a replacement for one that had been yanked off its foundation and dragged out to sea by the tsunami. A couple on their honeymoon had been asleep at the time. Turk shook his head and muttered to himself, “Poor fuckers.”
He was almost ready to feel something like a kind of beer-goggle empathy when he realized that it might not be such a bad way to go after all. Everyone wants to die in their sleep with their loved ones near.
He opened the door to the cabana and stopped. Hadn’t he locked it when he left? With his beer-impaired memory Turk couldn’t be sure, but any fear he might’ve had was shoved aside by an urgent need to piss. He pushed the door open and flicked on the light before making a beeline to the toilet. He decided he should say something to scare off any potential intruders, and opted for a cheery greeting in the kind of mock singsong voice popular with actors in situation comedies.
“Honey, I’m home.”
He walked quickly into the bathroom and stood swaying over the toilet, fumbling with the string on his pants.
“Sorry I’m late. There was a meeting at the lodge.”
Turk pulled out his penis and recycled the beer into the basin.
“I may go bowling with Fred tomorrow.”
He chuckled at his joke, tears of relief swelling in his eyes, as he squeezed out the last couple of squirts and shook the lingering drops from his dick.
“Maybe you can have bridge night with your girlfriends.”
Turk flushed the toilet and walked into the room.
He noticed it right away: a white envelope with his name written on it. Turk opened it and read the short note.
This is a last opportunity to save your wife. We want one million American dollars. You have one day to get the money and then we will contact you. Do not contact the authorities. We are watching.
He read it several times, the bad penmanship of the author and the beers he’d consumed conspiring to make certain parts of it blur and blend like an optical illusion. But Turk knew what it meant: Sheila was alive. He reached for the phone and then stopped. Clive had told him not to use the phone, that it was probably bugged. Everything had to be done discreetly.
Turk burst out of his cabana and jogged down the beach toward the restaurant. He had to show the note to Clive and Marybeth.
…
When Somporn, visibly relieved, came back to the hut, Sheila was wrapped in a towel, sitting on the bed and drinking a glass of whiskey. Somporn couldn’t be sure, but it looked like she’d been crying.
She looked up at him. “Did I do something wrong?”
Somporn shook his head. How could he explain his reaction to her? He strongly desired her, it was true, and knew he would love to have sex with her. But he was a disciplined professional criminal and a Buddhist. As a criminal he knew that Thai laws looked at kidnapping one way—carrying a brief prison term—while rape was considered a capital crime and carried the death penalty. The sex between them might be consensual here in the jungle, but once free—and with DNA evidence still on her body—she might have an entirely different story.
As a Buddhist, despite violating all Five Precepts in this lifetime, Somporn realized that the desire he felt rising in him was an emotional response that he could control. He could sever his desire for Sheila with mental discipline—while still realizing the truth behind it—and keep himself from acting impulsively.
“No. You are fine.”
“But why did you leave? Don’t you like me?”
There was something sad about the way she said it, as if she had been lonely her entire life. It broke Somporn’s heart to hear her sound that way. He sat down on the bed next to her and lit a cigarette.
“I like you. Very much.”
He exhaled a plume of smoke and reached for the whiskey bottle. He unscrewed the cap and poured a little of the amber liquor into her glass before filling his halfway. He took a sip of the whiskey, as usual loving the way the flavor of the alcohol mixed with the smoke of the cigarettes; it tasted earthy and strong.
“Hand me the oil. You must keep your skin moist.”
Without saying a word, Sheila removed the towel and lay naked on the bed as Captain Somporn began to slowly and tenderly rub sweet oil on her body.
…
Marybeth sat back in her chair and watched as Clive goggled his head around and leaned in toward her, flashing his irritatingly white teeth that looked like a theater marquee.
“Listen. What’s a bloke got to do to get you to go to bed with him?”
The teeth flashed again; a blinding semaphore smile. Marybeth considered the question. If she thought about her history and answered honestly, she would say, “Be famous.” But now things had changed; if she were really going to tell the truth, she would say, “Be Wendy.” She chose to be coy instead of honest.
“I take it on a case-by-case basis.”
Clive grinned even wider.
“Allow me to present some evidence to prove my claim.”
Marybeth hoped he wasn’t going to unzip his pants, but before he could do a thing Turk came racing over to them, sweating profusely and gasping for breath. Marybeth jumped up and moved toward him.
“Oh my God! Turk, are you okay?”
Turk gulped air and nodded.
“Sheila.”
He waved the piece of paper in the air. Clive instinctively took command of the situation. “Mr. Henry. Sit.”
Clive signaled the waiter. “We need some water over here.”
Turk nodded, catching his breath. “And a beer.”
While Marybeth used her napkin to mop the sweat from Turk’s face, Clive took the piece of paper from Turk’s hand and held it up to a candle to read it. Marybeth watched him.
“What is it?”
Clive smiled.
“They’ve made contact.”
…
Ben, neatly disguised with a Yankees baseball cap and a fake mustache, sat on the far side of the beach restaurant. He was about to dig into a second blue crab with chili sauce when he saw Turk running up. Obviously—when had anyone ever seen Turk run?—the kidnappers had made contact. Ben considered taking the million dollars and leaving. Just go on the lam. But he’d need a fake passport, a new name, all the stuff you need when you go underground, and he didn’t have the criminal connections for that kind of thing. Besides, he liked being Ben Harding. He didn’t want to adopt a new identity and live in Amsterdam. He wanted to go to his twentieth high school reunion and see all his friends, he wanted to visit his parents over the holidays, he wanted to collect on his veteran’s benefits. He didn’t want a new life. He just wanted to be Ben Harding, millionaire.
But it looked like Turk Henry had other ideas. He just wouldn’t give up. You’d think threats of rendition and getting up close and personal with a rotting carcass would be enough to put someone off. But Turk didn’t seem fazed by it. He
was stubborn. Ben adjusted his baseball cap and watched as Turk talked animatedly with Clive and Marybeth. Perhaps he’d underestimated him.
Ben realized he’d need a plan. The simplest one is usually the best. That’s what Ben had learned repairing helicopters, that’s what they taught him at the Land Rover customer service seminar, and that’s what ICE had preached as well. The simplest plan was to get Turk Henry dead.
As Ben watched Clive shifting into his rescue and recovery expert mode, he realized something. If the terrorists were in touch with Turk, they’d still expect a ransom, and Turk wouldn’t be able to get his money back from Ben without exposing himself to arrest. That meant Turk would have to go to the bank and get another million dollars. Ben rubbed his hands together. If he could somehow get Turk parted from that, he’d have two million dollars. And as everyone knows, two million dollars is twice as good as one million dollars.
…
Jon Heidegger sipped his glass of wine and looked across the table at his lunch companion, a young A&R guy from Planetary Records. The kid was hip, decked out in baggy pants and a pink Ramones T-shirt under a retro-plaid shirt from Penguin that he left unbuttoned and hanging open. It was the look: sloppy but cool, the features of his face hidden by manicured muttonchops and thick black eyeglass frames peeking out from under a swoop of brown bangs. The kid went by the name Jethro—no last name—and was a real rising star in the business.
The waiter, a handsome and gregarious Italian named Gino, came over and asked Jethro if he’d like a glass of wine.
“Uh. Arnold Palmer? Do you have that here?”
Gino nodded. Heidegger shook his head sadly. That was it, wasn’t it? The end of civilization personified by a half-iced tea, half-lemonade monstrosity that everyone in Los Angeles drank for lunch. Heidegger remembered—and he wasn’t even that old—when lunches began with a cocktail—a cold martini, a gimlet, a tangy margarita—before giving way to a bottle of wine. If you felt a little drowsy after lunch you’d just open your desk drawer, pull out your little mirror and razor blade, and hoover up a couple lines before your next meeting. Nowadays if you had a glass of wine—a single glass—people looked at you like you had a drinking problem.
That was the trouble with the music business. The film business, too. It wasn’t about the lifestyle anymore, it was about sales. Creativity didn’t matter; mediocrity was what sold, and mediocrity was easy to market, so mediocrity was what they pumped out. The world was no longer controlled by content providers—the musicians and songwriters—but by marketing teams and focus groups. If you asked a dozen random people plucked out of a shopping mall in Tarzana what kind of music they liked, well, you’d get Britney Spears, ’N Sync, Menudo, or some other lip-synching variation wearing Daisy Dukes and a see-through halter top.
Heidegger hoped it was just a cycle—like a moon wobble—just a phase the world was going through. At the end of the day, shit is shit no matter how pretty the packaging.
You can’t polish a turd.
Heidegger knew this to be true, and he was banking on it. He and his team had been snapping up as many of the most outrageous, idiosyncratic, and just plain weird acts as they could find. Heidegger was banking on rebellion, stockpiling bands for the backlash against corporate sludge and vacuous sex doll pop. He remembered the Sex Pistols. It was only a matter of time before people fought back, dumped vodka in their Arnold Palmers and started breaking furniture, if for no other reason than they were bored stiff.
Jethro dipped some bread into a little saucer of olive oil. “So what’s this about Metal Assassin? They getting back together?”
“They’re still exploring their solo projects. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Who?”
“Turk.”
Jethro rolled his eyes. “Sweet Jesus. The bass player? Are you kidding me?”
“He’s got a lot of songs.”
Jethro shook his head. “A solo album from a bass player. That’s such a loser move, man.”
Heidegger sipped his wine and looked at Jethro. “Sting is a bass player, as I recall.”
Jethro looked skeptical. “I don’t know, man.”
Heidegger pressed him. “You got the bass player from the biggest heavy metal group in history. Right? That’s going to guarantee you go gold.”
“Yeah. Some metal heads might buy it. But what about John Q. Public? Do people even know who he is?”
A plate of figs stuffed with Gorgonzola arrived. Heidegger leaned forward.
“When people hear about his wife’s kidnapping and his desperate attempt to rescue her from the hands of terrorists in Thailand, everyone will know who he is.”
Jethro’s expression changed. “You’re fucking kidding me.”
Heidegger shook his head. “It’s happening right now.”
…
Roy guided his scooter through the morning rush hour and arrived at the U.S. Embassy on Wireless Road only fifteen minutes late for work. He didn’t think it would matter; his boss hadn’t been in the office for days, and no one else would notice. What was it with these Americans and their mania for punctuality? Roy was running late because he’d been out drinking with some friends the night before and had stopped on his way to work at a little Chinese restaurant for some pork congee to cure his hangover. The soupy rice porridge with shreds of roast pig and dollops of red-hot chili sauce had, temporarily, done the trick. While he didn’t exactly have a spring in his step, he was upright, and the pounding headache and queasy churning in his stomach had subsided.
Roy clipped his ID badge onto his shirt and walked up to the security checkpoint. He emptied his keys, his belt, his wristwatch, and a gold ring into a little dish and then crossed through the metal detectors. He went to the staff room and swiped his ID badge through a digital reader. An LED readout announced the time. Computerized time cards—very un-Thai.
He entered his office and flicked on the lights. The air-conditioning was already cranking at maximum; he felt like he worked in a giant refrigerator. Roy checked his messages and was alarmed to discover there were already three from his boss.
He immediately picked up the phone and dialed Ben’s cell phone number.
“Where have you been?”
“I had an errand to perform.”
Ben paused. Maybe Roy had been running an errand for someone on staff. Better not to make a big deal of it.
“Well, I’ve got another one for you. Ready?”
“Ready.”
“This is all black, understand? Don’t tell anyone anything. Just do it.”
“Okay.”
“I need a tactical kit, a light one, sent down here ASAP.”
“Shall I liaise with the Thahan Prahan?”
Ben shook his head in dismay. Thahan Prahan translated roughly as “Hunter Soldiers,” and the last thing he wanted was a squad of Thailand’s elite trigger-happy special ops commandos running amok in Phuket.
“No. Don’t liaise anything through anybody. Just send it to me.”
“That’s against the protocols.”
“I know it is. That’s why it’s black.”
There was a pause on the line.
“Should I check with the Defense Attaché Office?”
“Roy. This isn’t a Defense Department operation. Black means black, and this is totally black, understand?”
There was another pause on the line, then Roy spoke.
“Is now a good time to talk to you about getting a higher grade of pay?”
Ben sighed. “Would you like a vacation to go with it?”
“I have always wanted to go to San Francisco.”
Sarcasm never worked on the Thais. They just didn’t get it. Ben took a breath, tried to control his temper.
“Okay. I’ll get you a raise. Now send me the fucking pack.”
…
The plan, so far, was pretty simple. Clive had brought a secure satellite phone with him and Marybeth used it to call Heidegger in Los Angeles. Heidegger
was expecting something like this and had the million bucks ready to go. He agreed to wire it to the bank in Phuket, but not before telling her to tell Turk that a deal had been struck with Planetary Records for a solo album and that Turk needed to call him as soon as he could to work out the particulars.
The record deal took Turk by surprise. On the one hand it was good, because he had a new song, but on the other hand he was right in the middle of a hostage negotiation. Couldn’t it wait?
With the cash on the way, Marybeth needed to go into town and buy a wheelie suitcase large enough to hold the money. Clive decided he would accompany her as some kind of security guard just in case something happened; it was a lot of money to be dragging around unprotected. Clive tried to reassure Turk and Marybeth by showing them the .9mm handgun that he had stuck in a belt holster underneath his garish Hawaiian shirt, but the reality of the gun just made Turk nauseous.
All of this was discussed as they strolled on the beach, Turk and Clive walking their hangovers off. Clive told them that from now on they would operate on what he called “radio silence”: no phones, not even cell phones; no conversations in any of the rooms. In fact, the less they talked about it the better. They should assume someone—either the kidnappers or ICE—was watching them at all times.
Turk was happy to see that Clive was taking charge, organizing and strategizing, and that Marybeth was taking it seriously, and not fucking around.
…
Marybeth walked down the main street of Hat Patong, the tourist-packed beach town a short drive from the pricier resort where they were staying. Clive hurried to keep up, trying to match her determined stride. They were looking for a luggage store, or at least a shop that sold luggage. But Marybeth couldn’t help herself, she was distracted by the scene. There were hundreds of tourists, mostly middle-aged Caucasian men wearing cargo shorts and polo shirts, sporting sunburned noses and clutching beers, milling around the street. Marybeth saw that most of the storefronts were bordellos masquerading as beer halls, with dozens of bar girls hanging around—some dancing languidly to disco music in the afternoon heat, others sitting with customers in booths. Only the occasional T-shirt shop, and a surf store selling condoms from Japan, interrupted the wall-to-wall emporiums of beer and sex.
Salty: A Novel Page 16